Month: March 2023

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Love, Passion, Seduction – Truth and Make-believe

Open old book in the sun and haze on a dark background
I am not out to make it any easier to any of my readers, alas, if any of them had supposed that. I am out to make it clear – and less painful for many, who really care.

Starting out into life as a young person in its teens, growing up, growing mature and even more mature over time, one thing we will realize at some point:

Love is no light game.

There are movies, books and TV series in abundance especially these so ‘progressive days’, where we seem to ‘know it all’ – which try to ‘make one believe’ differently…
The 1960s long since behind us, when it was supposed to be just the butterfly thing for all who called themselves avantgarde – modern and advanced in thinking…

So, it’s routine these days?

To this day I observe those who believe that seduction is a game: ‘He who seduces successfully wins the prize’ – the prize of the biggest and most important among his peers – the football club, the card players – or simply the pub goers.

Well, my friends, its not. It’s the prize for the biggest simpleton – among many –  given away, if anything.

Go on and use your imagination, your intellect and your heart – talk to people – and read. And you will learn. If you want to.

Of course there are those whose sole excitement in life is the thought of yet another passionate love affair.

I am for the truth, the simple and humane truth: In love it’s the heart that counts, not the brain or the long legs – or the hormones.

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Tolerance – The Basis for Pluralism and Diversity

Image of a cat and a flying bird looking at each other

“Tolerance – The ability or willingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behaviour that one dislikes or disagrees with.”

I have posted similarly about this before.

Tolerance sounds nice and easy and important and altogether a desirable behaviour or mindset.
It is not easy, at all.
It is important and desirable.

Tolerance, as the definition in the Oxford Dictionary so nicely makes clear means to endure something one does not  agree with – or dislikes even.
As human beings many, I’d say, more than 50% of most of the population of any region in this world, are raised to certain ideals and rules that they are expected to fulfill or conform with, often no matter what.

The sad and scientifically proven fact is that many people often become sick in mind and body just because of that. The patriarchal society in particular, for example, expects men to be always on the alert, always superior, always cool, calm and collected although that is neither human nor really ‘manly’.

In consequence much more men than women suffer from alcoholism, are addicted to smoking – or worse.

The strictness of many of these unwritten rules of behaviour can make it extremely difficult to either accept a deviation  in shape of a person – or a whole culture, even. Especially, when those rules are lived by without reflection – or almost none.

History…

Human history alas is also full of results of the lack of tolerance and the reasons for it.

It seems that many human beings are easily scared by phenomena or appearances that  seem strange or unusual. The idea being that strangeness might mean danger – or at least a more or less subtle way to call ones own being into question.

The sometimes dreadful results of that kind of mindset are wars, pogroms and mass massacres of groups or peoples or tribes that seem to threaten the established order or ideals.

This can happen in everyday life too. When many people are convinced a  certain way of life is the only healthy way – and someone else deviates from that.

I make the plea here, once again, as always: Let’s tolerate anything that is inside the range of the Human Rights Declaration – and create more peace on this earth – every day.

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The Long View – Hollywood and Bollywood – The ‘Happy End’ of Fairy Tales

Fairy christmas holiday lights in a jar with christmas decoration and snow in half darkness
Love is perhaps the single most often treated subject anywhere: In arts, crafts and music, writing and the film industry, including this blog. There’s such a lot around on love, passionate and otherwise. Poems, novels, songs, concerts, ballets, stage plays, and, last but not at all least, TV and cinema movies as well as serials. They can entertain, instruct or move you, separately – or all at once. But one thing is true too:
Many of them are quite beside the facts.

I think we can safely conclude one thing: What we do not see or have is reality. And what we do see or have is reality, as well.

The longer you are around, the more you learn to understand that life is not a cookie jar. No song and dance either. That passionate love affairs that end happily for all concerned are not around every corner, no matter how frustrated you might have felt in your everyday life before…

Happiness in life comes from the small things, the ‘mundane’, the apparently undramatic.

Why is that? Because, human beings are not ‘made from clay’ (‘flesh and blood’) alone. Simply and concisely put:

We are no cars… to be assembled and put together in the workshop – or put right by replacing a part like a broken windshield wiper.

A human being is more than the sum of its parts.

That means that apart from any helping elements such as opportunity or surroundings or music or – stimulants…there’s always the emotional part, and ‘the day after’. And the others, those concerned.

I have been interested in humans and why they behave the way they do, love, hatred, fury, anger, frustration, joy, happiness and love or friendship, and all the existing research on that, in more or less depth, as well as all the arts have to say and show for it, all my life. I am no youngster anymore and I can say this, with all my heart.

Remember that you are no “gymnast of love” – but a human being, with heart, mind, soul, and body.

Again:

A human being is more than the sum of its parts.

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The Human Element – or: “Fake It Till You Make It” – or: British UNDERstatement or: the Cultural Differences in Self-marketing

image of a dancing woman in the distance in a huge ballroom of an Indian palace

Quite some time ago I was made aware of this little phrase, so short – yet with quite an impact, if you think about it: “Fake it till you make it.”

It means, as many of my readers will know or find out that you would – especially in a business context – rather overdo (‘overstate’) your skills or abilities. Then, after landing the job or the project you’ll acquire what is needed and do the work anyway.

I was raised on the opposite, translated from the German: “Be more than appearances would suggest.” “Mehr Sein als scheinen.” It refers to the idea that a modest behaviour is aimed at, in spite of appearing skilful or wealthy – or wise.

There’s the British understatement I was also made aware of early in life. It’s a similar approach: Be modest, not overbearing and do not be perhaps even a little ‘vulgar’ by boasting, even if its essence would be true.

There are surroundings and countries, in business as well, where the opposite, the ‘self-marketing’ approach is expected.

Usually that is no big deal. But when you work in one part of the world where people expect behaviour they feel to be common – and you noticeably behave differently, things can get difficult. At least, misunderstandings are practically around every other corner.

That’s why I also think:

Let’s be careful when encountering people from other regions, with different backgrounds. The differences are in detail. First and last.

We are basically wonderfully human, all of us.

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